Photographed by Renzo Navarro for the September 2024 Issue of Vogue Philippines
Photographed by Renzo Navarro for the September 2024 Issue of Vogue Philippines
As Carl Jan Cruz nears the end of his first decade in the spotlight, he’s going deeper into his roots, and pushing to create a recognizably Filipino sartorial language.
What does it mean for a fashion label to be, and feel, Filipino?
This is a question that designer Carl Jan Cruz has been trying to answer in one way or another for the better part of 10 years with his eponymous label. Trained in London, Cruz made the intentional decision to return to Manila, where he was raised, to start his brand. From there, he crafted denim, gowns, and pique knits with an instantly recognizable approach to casual elegance, and brought his distinctive vision of contemporary Filipino design with him to New York, London, and Paris.
The idea was, in some sense, to give Filipino design a voice on the world stage by bringing it to the cities often looked to as fashion capitals.
“When you say Japanese, British, or French, in terms of fashion,” CJ says, “you get a visual cue right away.” He wants to see the term “Filipino design” evoke just as distinctive a visual language in the global fashion imagination.
After close to a decade in business, he’s repeatedly refined his idea of what that might look like. Increasingly, his vision doesn’t require him to travel elsewhere to promote an idea of Filipino-ness, but to root so deeply into the place and culture that formed him that his work serves as a beacon that draws the rest of the world in.
Last July, Cruz and his team released “International Interbarangay,” a body of work that in some ways feels like the distillation of Cruz’s past nine years of meditating on what Filipino design means. Many of the brand signatures are present: highly structured denim, unexpected textures created by quilting or sewing fabrics in unusual ways, artfully visible seams and finishes, casual fabrics employed in elevated silhouettes.
“Our sense of being Filipino is different, and yet the same.”
There’s a fullness in the work that Cruz credits to his team, which has grown from two to 30 over the last nine years. He describes this year as his first feeling truly like a creative director, with the label putting out a body of work that emerged from Carl Jan Cruz as a design house and studio, not just the work of a singular designer.
The body of work’s name, International Interbarangay, hints at that broader vision, a tribute to what it means to design as a Filipino from the perspective of many different people. Not only does the team draw from different regions and barangays within the Philippines, but it also represents the Filipino diaspora across the globe, featuring team members with connections to the U.S., London, Oman, Bahrain, and more.
“Our sense of being Filipino is different, and yet the same,” he says of his studio. “I wanted to flesh that out to reflect what the brand is at this point—it’s not just a visual autobiography, it’s really a visual reflection on what Filipino design is, or could be, under my creative direction.”
There are references to traditional Filipino garments like the barong or alampay, which the brand has interpreted more straightforwardly in this collection than at some points in the past. But the context and styling make clear the ways that Cruz is trying to both honor and stretch the visual language he grew up with.
That’s part of what’s so satisfying about seeing the CJ Cruz of today, nearly a decade into his business. He’s been, by many measures, remarkably successful: his clothes have been worn by celebrities at home and abroad, he’s employing more people than ever, and he has expanded his studio and opened a store.
Perhaps most impressively, he’s managed a seemingly impossible task: to keep afloat as a small business while maintaining the integrity of his artistry.
So when he says he’s “coming to terms with the strength and roots of being a Filipino brand,” you get the sense that he’s choosing to center the Philippines again in his work and career—as he’s done over and over, in big ways and small, for years—and that his choice is proof that doing so doesn’t need to be a limiting factor for Filipino creatives of any stripe.
“There’s a perfect balance of loving your heritage, but at the same time feeling that you’ve pushed it into modern times,” he says.
Filipino aesthetics existed before Cruz and his team, and they will exist after, but his approach is a reminder that evolution is a sign that something is still vital and alive. It’s difficult today to imagine Filipino dress without the barong made from piña fibers, even though the archipelago and its people existed long before pineapple was first brought to its shores.
Perhaps, in the same way, there will come a time when it’s impossible to hear “Filipino fashion” without calling to mind the boldly striped piques and structured denim of Carl Jan Cruz.
